1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of computer systems and more specifically to a system, method, and computer program product for centrally managing INFINIBAND distributed system area network end nodes.
2. Description of Related Art
Historically, increasing compute requirements were addressed by computer manufactures by designing faster uni-processor systems. As such offerings became cost prohibitive and could not react to the time-to-market requirements, multiple processors were tightly coupled together to create symmetric multi-processor (SMP) systems. Again, driven by higher compute requirements, multiple single or multi-processors were connected together to create a cluster. Clusters of multiple systems provide increased compute capability. However, these clusters often deploy proprietary interconnects to decrease latency and are difficult to manage.
A new industry standard architecture, commonly called “INFINIBAND”, has been developed for interconnecting systems in cluster configurations. This new architecture is capable of providing decreased latency, greater bandwidth and increased expandability.
The new architecture provides a system-area network which includes a channel-based, switched-fabric technology. In such a system-area network (SAN), data is transmitted via messages which are made up of packets. Each device, whether it is a processor or I/O device, includes a channel adapter. The messages are transmitted from one device's channel adapter to another device's channel adapter via switches.
INFINIBAND provides an industry standard interconnect for clustering and defines a mechanism for message transfer between end nodes. The Architecture outlines key management requirements for initialization, configuration, and control but limits these requirements only to INFINIBAND components in the fabric (INFINIBAND adapters and switches). Cluster management entails inter-node management requirements also and these are deemed outside the scope of the architecture.
Therefore, a need exists for a method, system, and computer program product for centrally managing INFINIBAND distributed system area network end nodes.